Institute Of Public Affairs

Modern anti-science was created by the tobacco industry in the 1950s and then used against climate science, often by the same well-experienced think tanks and individuals. Tobacco anti-science is strangely entangled with climate anti-science, as the attached report shows in detail involving Fred Singer's SEPP, Joseph Bast's Heartland, and more. (Fakery 2 10/25/12 updates this post with more data.)

The news is actually somewhat surprising. IPA is a right-wing, corporate funded think tank with close ties to the Liberal Party of Australia (which is actually on the political right). Its Executive Director John Roskam is a former Howard government staffer and one of the organization’s key positions is to refute the science on issues such as climate change. A position that Marohasy promoted with vigor during her six-year tenure at IPA, though not all of her attempts to spread global warming denial came to fruition.

“I had great hopes for the planned collaboration between the IPA and University of Queensland on evidence-based environmentalism but the University proved too timid and conservative – at least for me.” - JenniferMarohasy.com

Marohasy has also left her position as Executive at the Orwellian named Australian Environment Foundation (AEF), which was established to help protect timber interests in Australia and founded by the IPA. The former Executive Director of the IPA described the AEF as “pro-biotechnology, pro-nuclear power, pro-modern farming, pro-economic growth, pro-business and pro-environment.” That last pro might be questionable.

Among the many conservative think tanks faithfully pushing the skeptic message in Washington, D.C., few are as prominent—or, should I say, infamous—as the Heartland Institute. The “independent” research and non-profit group has the dubious distinction of having organized the first major denier-palooza, the “International Conference on Climate Change,” last year. Despite a less than stellar showing, and an even more lukewarm follow-up in March, it’s hoping that the third time will be the charm.

The likes of Senator James Inhofe, Lord Christopher Monckton and Anthony Watts will be descending on the Washington Court Hotel this week to discuss the “widespread dissent to the asserted “consensus” on the causes, consequences, and proper responses to climate change.” Its ostensible purpose will be to “expose Congressional staff and journalists to leading scientists and economists in the nation’s capital” and demonstrate that “global warming is not a crisis and that immediate action to reduce emissions is not necessary”—which it calls the emerging consensus view of (the handful of) scientists outside the IPCC.

Sources are telling DeSmog that on Dec. 6th a last and final attack on climate change science and the media will be mounted by Sen. James Inhofe, outgoing chair of the Envrionment and Public Works Committee .

For his final committee comedy act, Inhofe has proposed an interesting line-up of witnesses, all of them, unsuprisingly, close to the fossil fuel industry-backed war on science. First up will be Dr. Bob Carter an Australian who's affiliations include the fossil fuel industry friendly (and funded) Institute of Public Affairs. Second up is David Deming, an “adjunct scholar” for the National Centre for Policy Analysis…

As if in punishment for an idle compliment that I posted only yesterday, the usually reputable Australian daily, the Melbourne Age, embarrasses itself today with a piece by Alan Moran, director of the Australian Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) deregulation unit.We have written before on the IPA's status as a mining and energy industry front group. The Age, like so many credulous newspapers, should be ashamed of itself for publishing this kind of confusing and scientifically suspect material from industry backed lobbyists who are presenting themselves as climate change experts.

In our continuous quest to debunk the debunkers, the DeSmogBlog has uncovered another questionable connection between an oil company funded front group and the Alberta-based Friends of Science.

Thanks to a helpful tip from one of our fans, and a little of our own digging, we have found that one of the signatories to a recent Friends of Science letter to PM Harper is Australian climate change “skeptic” Dr. Bob Carter. Dr. Carter is connected to the energy sector funded think tank, the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA).

"Fossil-fuel companies have spent millions funding anti-global-warming think tanks, purposely creating a climate of doubt around the science. DeSmogBlog is the antidote to that obfuscation." ~ BRYAN WALSH, TIME MAGAZINE